


Bodies Resume Their Boundaries

by left_uncovered



Series: Nowhere To Hide From These Bones [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 06:51:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/left_uncovered/pseuds/left_uncovered
Summary: Michael wakes up first the next morning. He isn’t sure what time it is, or when Jeremy will begin stirring, so he allows himself a minute to just lie there with him in this little bubble, before he has to get up and make this real.Jeremy and Michael, the morning after.





	Bodies Resume Their Boundaries

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to [On The Cusp,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10963404) written in Michael's POV and set the morning after the "platonic" handjob. It's also the prequel to a planned longer fic in this series about (among other things) the boys fumbling their way through a friends with benefits relationship.
> 
> Title from [Maxine Kumin.](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54772/after-love-56d23585651e1)

Michael wakes up first the next morning. Jeremy has shifted in his sleep, so he’s more on top of him than beside him, face still smashed into his collarbone, so all Michael can see are the sleep-mussed curls on top of his head. He can feel where Jeremy’s drooled through the thin cotton of his shirt, sticky with spit. His socked feet are pressed against Michael’s ankles, like he’s trying to chase the little bit of heat there.

He isn’t sure what time it is, or when Jeremy will begin stirring, so he allows himself a minute to just lie there with him in this little bubble, before he has to get up and make this real. When they were kids, Jeremy was always the first to ask to share the bed, so unselfconscious in his affection. Michael always agreed, even though he never did admit how much he liked it, out of embarrassment then pride then fear. When Jeremy had stopped asking the summer after seventh grade, Michael had smothered the urge to ask what he’d done wrong, and brought him the roll-up mattress.

And then he’d gotten mind-controlled, and Michael had saved the school, and suddenly they were back to sharing most nights of the week.

Michael tries not to think too hard about that.

Jeremy rolls away a little, head sliding off Michael and onto the pillow, and Michael takes that as his cue to disentangle himself. He thinks he was definitely here longer than a minute, but in the quiet of the room, with Jeremy still asleep, there’s no one to fault him for being too greedy.

He rolls out of bed, and pulls on his discarded pair of sweats. His room looks exactly like it did the night before. Two bean bags in the center, in front of the gaming console and television. Posters from various video games and cult movies from the 80’s peeling off the walls. Two sets of abandoned physics problem sets strewn across the floor. One twin bed, currently occupied. Muted light slats through the blinds, forming little rectangles on Jeremy’s face. His eyelids are fluttering, which means he’s going to be awake soon, so Michael allows himself to appreciate the quiet moments before he is, before he stirs and his eyes open against the light.

“Michael?” Jeremy’s voice is always raspy in the morning. He rolls into the still-warm indentation beside him. Michael forces himself to look away. “You’re up already?”

His fingers play with the drawstrings of his sweats. “Yeah, buddy.”

Jeremy makes some kind of incredulous noise, and when he speaks again, his voice is muffled by the pillow. “God, it’s so early. We were up way too late last night.”

“I guess,” he says, though it looks like Jeremy’s already fallen back asleep.

Michael lets go of the drawstrings. He stretches his hands out in front of him, clenches his fists tight, unclenches them, then clenches them again. He catalogs his room as he breathes: bean bags, posters, homework. Bed. Jeremy. He’s not sure why he expected any of it to be different in the morning.

*

Jeremy gets up for real an hour later. He wanders into the kitchen bleary-eyed as Michael is plating their breakfast. His bedhead is atrocious and his boxers are hanging sinfully low on his hips, and really, Michael shouldn’t have so much trouble tearing his eyes away when he’s seen more than Jeremy’s hips, after last night.

Jeremy pulls himself up to the counter. “Oh hey, you cooked,” he says. “That smells nice. Did you make any for me?”

“I figured we could have something that wasn’t cereal for once. And obviously, when do I not?” Michael scoops the last fried egg out of the pan. Sunny side up, yolk slightly watery, just like Jeremy likes it. The egg goes onto his plate, next to the scoop of rice and three links of _longganisa_.

“But I love Frosted Flakes!”

Jesus, Michael can practically hear the pout.

“You’re welcome.”

He lays the two plates on the counter in front of Jeremy, who’s lying with his face pressed against the cool marble. He perks right up when he sees the food, looking from Michael to the plate then back to Michael. He looks like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Is that _longganisa_?” he asks, sounding awed.

“You bet it is,” Michael says, unable to suppress his own grin. Jeremy’s smile is infectious. Michael’s missed seeing him excited over small things.

“No way! You said that was only for special occasions. I swear to god, Michael, if you have a bag of that in the back of your freezer, I’m taking it.”

“Then you better savor this, because that’s the last of it.”

The nearest Filipino store is in Fort Lee, a forty-five-minute drive away, so he probably won’t be back until next month. Or until his mom decides to have her friends over, whichever comes first.

“Hey, why don’t you come with me next time? Then you can get all the _longganisa_ your heart desires.”

Jeremy pauses mid-chew to smile, goofy, face stuffed with meat and rice and egg. Michael tightens his grip around his fork.

He’d already gone with Michael once, right after he’d gotten his license and his mom had sent him alone for the first time. They’d strolled through the aisles together, checking items off her list. When Jeremy had wandered off, Michael found him in the produce section, sniffing the mangoes. He’d laughed at him and bought him two, just because, and Jeremy had gorged himself on them back at his house until he got juice all over his lips and dripping down his chin, and wasn’t _that_ a sight. Michael thinks if Jeremy lived in his house he probably wouldn’t be so skinny.

“So what’s the special occasion?”

Jeremy’s voice breaks him out of his reverie.

“What?”

“You said the _longganisa_ was only for special occasions.”

“Oh. Uh. I guess I just felt like it, you know? It was going to go bad in a couple of days anyway, and I remembered how much you liked it last time.” Actually, Michael had just bought it earlier that week, but he needed to preserve at least some of his dignity.

“Thanks,” Jeremy says. This time it’s the earnest smile and not the goofy one. “For this. And for the, uh…”

He trails off, and to Michael’s horror, puts down his fork and uses his right hand to mime jerking off a dick. Michael wonders how he went from barely being able to say _handjob_ to _this_.

“No problem,” he chokes out, and then reaches for his glass of water so he doesn’t have to say anything else.

Thankfully, the next time Jeremy opens his mouth, it’s not to talk about that time Michael gave him a handjob. “Hey, so I have to go in a while. My dad wants some father-son time this weekend and I promised I’d be home before 11.” Michael’s expecting to hear the air quotes around “father-son time”, but Jeremy says it without a hint of irony.

“Yeah, ‘course.” He’s nodding so hard he worries his head might roll off his shoulders. “I should probably get some of that physics homework done.”

Jeremy puts his dishes into the washer and goes back to Michael’s room to pack his things. “See you on Monday,” he says, swinging out the front door with a little spring in his step. When the door clicks shut, Michael honest-to-god _tiptoes_ toward it, to watch his retreating figure through the blinds.

He waits until Jeremy’s a safe distance from his porch to have his freak-out.

Okay. So: last night. On the downside: Jeremy was joking about it, so it definitely wasn’t just a very vivid wet dream. On the upside: Jeremy was joking about it, so it wasn’t a big deal, either. Michael’s pretty sure giving someone a handjob is outside the realm of typical best friend obligations, but nothing about their friendship has ever been typical, especially not after the Squip. The things Michael said were _definitely_ not typical, but Jeremy seemed to like it – and who knew Jeremy was even into dirty talk? – and okay, Michael is not going to think about Jeremy’s face when he was begging to come because he actually wants to get homework done before noon instead of wanking up a storm.

Besides, it doesn’t really matter what Jeremy does or doesn’t like, since it’s never happening again. Jeremy made that clear enough last night, when he wouldn’t even look at Michael after he’d returned to his senses. And that morning, too. Michael has never seen anyone so glib about a friendly handjob – not that he’s given many friendly handjobs before. Or any, for that matter. But he’s not going to think about how he and Jeremy technically kind of took each other’s virginity, either, because he is not going to get sentimental over a friendly handjob.

The point is, if Jeremy freaking-out-is-my-okay Heere can be cool about it, Michael can, too. He doesn’t need it to happen again. He’s not _that_ desperate. Last night alone gave him enough spank bank material for the next fifty years, so it’s probably a good thing it’s not going to happen again, because otherwise he’d never leave his room. Starting now, he’s going to put The Jeremy Incident out of his mind. Resolved, he stashes the leftovers in the fridge and goes to do his physics homework.

*

He does not put The Jeremy Incident out of his mind.

It takes about ten minutes of him lying on his sheets that still smell of Jeremy for him to start getting hard, like some fucked up horny teenage Pavlovian response. He groans and shoves his hand into his boxers, and then buries his head in the pillow, because he figures if he’s going to do this anyway, he might as well commit.

Of all the mortifying things Michael said that night, that he wanted to make Jeremy _feel good_ was probably the worst. He starts stroking himself slow and unhurried, just like he’d touched Jeremy, and thinks about how his face had gone all soft after he’d said it. Like he couldn’t believe someone would want to make him feel good – which was ridiculous, because Michael would make him feel good every day for the rest of his natural life if that’s what he wanted.

Michael knows him well, knows more than he should after last night. He knows what Jeremy wants isn’t him, but he still knows how to touch him just right, and it only took one try. It was easy, with Jeremy directing him in the darkness of his bedroom, flushed and desperate and refusing to meet his eyes. He thinks if he just had another chance, he’d make it so good that when Jeremy would wake up in the morning he’d roll back over and breathe him in and stay.

He messes up the sheets when he comes, but it’s okay, because he was going to wash them anyway.

When he’s done loading the laundry and making a half-hearted attempt at his homework, he checks his phone and sees Jeremy’s sent him a selfie out by the bridge of some lake. It looks like he’s out fishing with his dad. The sun has brought out his freckles and burned the tip of his nose pink. His lips are twisted into a ridiculous pout. The text accompanying the picture says _being outside is the worst_.

Without even thinking about it, Michael saves the image to his phone. It autosaves in the folder that contains all the other random selfies Jeremy’s sent him through the years. Jesus Christ.

It’s okay. He has it under control. He can start putting it out of his mind tomorrow.

*

Jeremy doesn’t say anything about it on the drive to school the next Monday, so Michael doesn’t say anything either, and he figures this is just how it’s going to be. He asks for the mattress the next time he comes over, so Michael hauls it out from the back of the closet, but they end up in Michael’s bed anyway, laptop open in front of them, playing a randomly chosen episode of some police procedural. They’re not curled together like Michael’s used to, but their legs brush against each other under the blanket whenever Jeremy shifts, and every time he yawns, Michael hopes with stupid desperation that he’ll fall asleep here, just like this, and forget the mattress entirely. It makes him feel slimy, this crooked longing he hides between his ribs, the way it pushes outward like it’s trying to escape. His own personal little chestburster.

The problem, he thinks, is that he never quite taught himself how to be resigned. Five years of being in love and a Squip later, and he still hasn’t quit. It’s stupid, but he just keeps hoping, maybe today will be the day Jeremy wakes up in the morning and feels differently. Michael had always seen him as just his best friend until he didn’t, so why couldn’t it be the same for Jeremy? It didn’t happen the morning after The Incident, or any of the ones after, but maybe this time. Maybe tomorrow.

Jeremy’s fallen asleep, still propped up against the headboard, blankets pulled all the way up to his chin. Michael watches the light from the laptop screen move across his face, and counts the hours till morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Emma](http://danisnotofire.tumblr.com) for reading this over and being an encyclopedia for all things New Jersey.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I am on [Tumblr.](http://softfists.tumblr.com)


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